Pokemon Online
by amethystdreamstar
Summary: As a child, Kayaba had been fascinated by the world of Pokémon. Deciding to incorporate his favourite game into his vision of a floating castle, a very different adventure unfolds for our favourite characters of SAO. Follows Kirito as the Black Swordsman and a second beta tester who befriends Kirito.


**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing you recognize.**

**Summary: As a child, Kayaba had been fascinated by the world of Pokémon. Deciding to incorporate his favourite game into his vision of a floating castle, a very different adventure unfolds for our favourite characters of SAO. Follows Kirito as the Black Swordsman and a second beta tester who befriends Kirito.**

"SWITCH!"

The sounds of a monster's roars were momentarily overpowered by the sound of a male voice shouting to his companion. Without wasting a second, the second fighter sprang forth into the air and struck two blades into the monster's weak point: its eyes.

The 20 foot monster roared again in pain and anger. Just as the blue snake-like beast was about to throw the fighter off, a female voice called out into the sky.

"Vulcan, Ember attack!"

The second the command had ended another monster-like creature with a flaming tail ran forward on its two short legs to assist in the fight. When it reached the giant flying monster, 'Vulcan' jumped up and did a front flip in the air before spewing out a small stream of fire out of its mouth. The fire struck with deadly accuracy and gave the female warrior time to jump away from the monster as it began to flail in the last moments of its life.

The mob's health continued to decrease steadily, despite the fact that no one was attacking it. The reason for this was because Vulcan's Ember attack had left it with a Burn Status Effect. Burns lowered a mob's attack and also ate away at its Hp – Health Points – over time. The Critical Hit to the eyes of the beast had dropped the mob's health very close to the red, and the Ember had pushed its health from yellow to red even though the attack was fire based and the mob was water. The Burn was the final straw and within moments the Gyarados mob would be defeated.

Despite how close the mob was to running out of Hp, it was still dangerous. One well-placed attack from a Gyarados could easily finish any of them as they had been grinding all day and were in the yellow section of their own Hp bars. Both fighters were well aware of this fact, and stayed a respectable distance away from the dying mob. Normally, one of the two players would run in and finish off the mob rather than wait for a Burn to do the job, but they were both mentally exhausted from fighting so many high level monsters that day that they silently agreed to not push themselves too much in this fight. It was the last day of the Beta Test and neither of them wanted to be sent back to Starting City because they had been careless in their exhaustion.

Within seconds, the Gyarados mob's Hp had reached zero and the mob had exploded in a shower of bright blue polygons.

A light purple screen appeared before my eyes, informing me about the items, Col – the form of currency in this game – and Exp I and Vulcan had gained from the fight. Vulcan's Exp gain was kind of useless since the pets of this game, called Pokémon, could not level up past their player and he had already reached that.

I closed the window and looked over at my temporary party member. Like me, he was dressed in all black but where I had opted for a tunic-like dress (it was almost impossible to find clothes for girls that were anything other than skirts or dresses despite the fact that fighting was the prime purpose of the game) my friend had chosen a long black coat and a pair of black pants. His long black hair cast a shadow over his avatar's chiseled face, and I couldn't help but wonder what he looked like in real life.

Pokémon Online was the first VRMMORPG to be created, ever. The two of us had been lucky enough to be amongst the 1000 people chosen to be beta testers for this unreal game. The creator, Kayaba Akihiko, was an absolute genius and I could only imagine how long he had been working on this game to make an entire world with so much detail.

In this game, players used swords to fight powerful creatures known as Pokémon with the help of their own Pokémon. The purpose of the game was to clear all 100 floors of the world of Aincrad. Kirito and I had gotten further than any other players in the game, but even then the two of us had only reached floor 8.

Kirito and I had met quite by accident just before the first boss had been taken on by the beta testers. Both Kirito and I had chosen Charmander as our starting Pokémon, which was a Fire type. The boss and its minions were Rock and Ground Type Pokémon, which Fire Types were weak against. As a result, no one wanted to have us in their party and we were both left on our own. The other players that had Charmanders didn't receive the same treatment because they weren't 'Solo Players' like the two of us were and had friends that didn't care what type of Pokémon they had.

This exclusion wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been for one tiny detail, the players leading the attack on the boss had decided that no one could go in solo. The likelihood of dying was much higher as a solo player, and Kayaba had specifically said how difficult boss fights were. To reduce the expected death rate, it was decided amongst the players that no one could solo the boss. Secretly, many of the players were afraid that a single player would strike down the boss and take all of the Exp and drops for themselves, but no one said that out loud for fear of being accused of trying to hoard the Exp for themselves.

Just as I had been about to be turned away by the leaders of the raid Kirito had stepped forward and told the other players that the two of us were going to party together. Kirito and I had been instructed to take out the minions since our attacks wouldn't be very effective against the main boss. We'd both been pretty pissed about that and after helping other players in taking out all of the Geodude minions, the two of us took out the main boss in such a spectacular way that players were still talking about it.

The two of us became friends after that. We were still solo players, mostly, but we partied together a lot as well. We also shared knowledge of the game with each other, such as where quests were and good grinding spots. As time wore on, the two of us spent more time fighting together after realizing that our fighting styles complimented each other perfectly. Kirito would deal out heavy damage with his sword skills while his Pokémon Blaze would also attack. Since a normal mob could only be attacked by one player at a time, I would either take on another mob or wait until Kirito was stuck in cool down mode from using sword skills. As soon as Kirito called for a switch, I was there striking a devastating blow to the monster's Weak Spot. All monsters had one, and when you or a Pokémon hit it there was double damage dealt. Vulcan would attack as I did with a Fire Type attack since the chances of causing a Burn increased when a Pokémon struck at the same time as its player. I hadn't worked out the exact increase, but I would eventually.

This type of fighting style was really effective against powerful mobs since one of us was almost always attacking it and against weaker mobs well, they didn't stand a chance at all really. The two of us were strong, and together or alone we could handle ourselves against any Pokémonwe've encountered so far.

I was broken out of my thoughts when I felt a gentle nudging against my leg. I bent down and pat Vulcan's head. "Good job," I whispered to my golden-bodied Pokémon who closed his eyes in bliss under the attention I was giving him.

It was amazing, and slightly unnerving, how incredibly life-like the Pokémon were in this game. The ones used by players acted like live pets most of the time and could even understand what their player was saying outside of battle commands. Even more amazing was that Pokémon had personalities, and could learn. They were some of the most complex pieces of information I had ever seen, and it was hard to remember that they weren't real.

"Meleon!" Another Pokémon ran over to me and tried to push Vulcan out of the way in a demand that I give him attention as well. I gladly obliged and used my other hand to pet the Charmeleon's golden horn on the top of his head.

Neither Charmeleon or Charmander Pokémon were normally the golden-yellow that the two Pokémon before us were, which was another reason players tended to not like us too much. Vulcan and Blaze were known as Shiny Pokémon, meaning that they were incredibly rare and were a different colour than others of its type. The chances of both of us getting Shiny Charmanders as our starting Pokémon were so small, they were practically nonexistent. From what I could tell, Shinys as they were called by players, weren't any stronger than normal Pokémon and it was just a visual appeal, but that didn't stop the other players from being jealous and trying to attack us on occasion.

After a few minutes of lavishing attention on the two Pokémon, I stood up and walked over to where Kirito was standing. Kirito was looking around at his surroundings in silent awe, marveling at the amazing world Kayaba had created.

"I can't believe it's almost over," Kirito whispered so quietly that I wasn't sure I was meant to hear it.

I playfully nudged the raven-haired swordsman. "Cheer up Kirito," I said lightly, "It's only the end of the Beta Test. In another month we'll be right back here, taking the Last Attack Bonus from all the newbies as they take on the first boss."

Kirito smiled a bit at my statement and nodded his head in agreement. I was glad that I had broken Kirito out of his quiet broodiness. The truth is, I didn't want Kirito to get all sentimental on me because I knew that I'd start thinking about topics that are best left alone.

A thought occurred to me then, something that I had only contemplated a few times but never voiced aloud for fear of being rejected.

"Say Kirito," I began slowly. I looked away from Kirito's questioning eyes for a second before I steeled myself and looked directly into his avatar's dark eyes. "Would you like to party with me during the official release of Pokémon Online like how we are now? Soloing sometimes and working together for the rest of the time?"

I could tell the question took Kirito by surprise. Neither of us had really spoken about or occasional partying arrangement, we just partied for the occasional quest or grinding area if we saw that the other was there. Once the quest was done or the area was clear of mobs, the two of us would mutually part ways and head off to do our own thing. It was weird for both of us as traditional solo players to even consider a semi-permanent party.

"Uh…" Kirito fumbled as he tried to find something to say. "I – uh…"

I smirked at him. "Don't worry about it Kirito, if you don't want to that's fine. I just thought that it might be nice to have someone who's almost as good as I am to watch my back once and a while."

Kirito stared at me agape. "A-almost as good?" Kirito stuttered in shock.

I laughed. A full, clutching-your-stomach, kind of laugh. When I recovered I looked back up at Kirito with a full-blown smile on my face. "It was a joke Kirito," I said with a small chuckle. "I have no doubt that the level difference between us is at most 1, maybe 2, levels. I just enjoyed partying with you during the beta. Both of us are really strong solo players, probably some of the strongest that will play this game. I think it would be pretty neat to see what the two of us could do as a team, since neither of us will be holding the other back."

I stopped talking, figuring that I was rambling at that point. For a long while Kirito said nothing, making me wonder just what was going on inside the guy's head. With every minute that passed by, I felt more and more awkward just standing there. Even the Pokémon where staring at the two of us in solemn silence.

Just when I was about to tell Kirito to just forget that I ever mentioned the idea, a small smirk crept onto his avatar's face.

"I think I'd like that."

A nearly identical smirk appeared on my face at Kirito's words and without saying anymore I took off running into the valley before us that contained several less aggressive mobs than the Gyarados we had just fought. Kirito was less than a second behind me and our Pokémon were hot on our heels as we spent the last few hours of the Beta Test grinding on mobs and enjoying the beautiful world of Aincrad.

**amethystdreamstar: What can I say, from the first moment I saw SAO I fell in love. The idea of a xover only came to me later and well, the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I'm going to try and update my other stories before I update this one again, so it might be a week or so before another update is up. **

**Please review with any comments, criticism, or suggestions you have (forgive me if it looks a little rusty, I haven't written since Mayish). I already have an idea for what Pokémon I'm going to give Kirito, Asuna, Heathcliff and the new beta tester Kirito is friends with, but I'm open to ideas.**


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